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NCAAF Picks

College Football Pick: Rutgers -1½ over Cincinnati

Rutgers is coming off a bye and it expects to get its leading rusher Paul James back after missing four games Saturday vs. a Cincinnati club that has been feasting on lesser teams.

The visiting team is taking a step up in competition while going on the road and the home team is expecting its star running back to return from injury Saturday when the Cincinnati Bearcats (7-2, 2-2 away) pay a visit to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (5-3, 4-1 home) at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, NJ at 12:00 Noon ET in a game televised nationally on ESPNews.

The Bearcats are 7-2 overall and 4-1 in the AAC, and they have some gaudy stats on both sides of the ball, but they have been feasting on the easiest schedule of any AAC team with an SOS ranked 156th in the country according to the Sagarin Ratings, and they appear to be stepping up in competition here while going on the road, where they lost to probably the best team they have faced this year in an Illinois team ranked 77th by Sagarin, as well as a bad loss at South Florida.

Also, the running game was not totally helpless while James was out as Justin Goodwin did yeoman’s work filling in. Granted he ran for only 60 yards on 20 carries vs. Temple, but he is still now at 452 rushing yards on 4.9 yards per carry for the season with all but 44 of those yards coming after James went down. The Knights have a balanced offense when Nova is on top of hisgame, and thanks to a bye they have had two weeks to prepare for Cincinnati.

The raw statistics say that Cincinnati is ranked 32nd in the country in total offense and an outstanding seventh in the land in total defense, but again, there is the schedule to consider. We feel that defense will finally be put to the test here by a Rutgers team that is averaging 30.9 points and 401.8 total yards per game vs. a better schedule, especially with James back.

Look for home standing Rutgers to prevail and hand Cincinnati its second conference loss of the season on Saturday.